My mother gives me this look like I’m being rude.
“What?” I say. “You started it.”
Bibi swallows the rest of her egg roll, asks, “You wanna see?”
“What? Here?” my mother says.
She lifts her shirt, and there’s this hole where her belly button should be. It’s the size of a nickel, but it scoops in and up like the inside of a funnel. She does this right in the middle of the food court. People turn and stare. My mother tells her to pull down her shirt.
“So it’s like a vagina,” I say.
“Except you put your own pollen up there, push it in deep instead of flushing it.”
“What a relief,” my mother says. “I thought you couldn’t have children.”
“I can,” Bibi says. “But I won’t. Anyone who has a baby ends up dead.”
“Childbirth used to be risky here,” my mother says. “Thank God for modern medicine.”
“No,” Bibi says. “Procreation is suicide. Babies can’t come out the bottom. There’s no hole. To get out, they gnaw through your stomach. They eat the other organs on their way out.”
I sit there, shocked, my fries turning to mush on my tongue. “My God,” I say. “Why would anyone want to get pregnant?”
“They say it’s wonderful. Like being on heroin for nine months. The best euphoria there is.”
“Christ Almighty,” I say, “that’s some mad kind of population control.” I ask her if she’s heard of the one-child law in China, but she doesn’t answer.
“You’re in good hands now,” my mother says and gives her a hug, rocks her back and forth in her arms. Right there in the middle of the food court like she’s five years old. I just sit and stare at my food. As though I could eat after that.
My mother drops us off at school on Sunday, tells Bibi if she needs anything to call. We carry our laundry upstairs. Under our folded clothes, we find notes from my mother on matching stationery taped to bags of Hershey’s kisses. Mine says, “Loved having you home. So nice to spend time with you and Bibi.”
“Your mom’s really cool,” Bibi says. She props her turkey baster and note up on her dresser.
“Yeah,” I say. “I guess.”
Now that she likes my mom, she wants to be friends with me. Go figure.
I curl up on my futon with a piece of leftover corn bread. “So did you ever think of doing it?” I ask. “Just to see what pregnancy’s like? Don’t you think you will eventually?”
“Why would I do that?” she says.
“Don’t you think you’re missing out? You said it’s like drugs. I’d try that.”
“I don’t want to die,” Bibi says. “That’s why I’m here.”
“How does your planet feel about stem cell research?” I ask.
“They don’t understand why things should change.”
“Yeah, it’s kind of the same in America,” I say. “Stem cell research is a sin. Better watch out. They might throw you out of the country.”
She empties her chocolate kisses into the porcelain bowl my mother gave her.
“I think you’ll do it,” I say. “That’s what the turkey baster’s for, right? To stick the pollen all the way up?”
She just stares at me with her black eyes bugging out, and for a second I think she’s going to throw the bowl at my head. Either that or she’s going to cry. But she just turns and walks out of the room.
She didn’t come back that night. I wasn’t sure where she went. And frankly, I didn’t care.
Bibi didn’t speak to me for weeks. We gave each other the silent treatment and slammed the door a lot. I called my mother and told her I wanted to switch rooms. She said, “Angela, that’s not how we deal with our problems.”
I went to the RA and asked how long it would take to get a new room. She said I could file a complaint, but room changes were rarely approved.
It looked like Bibi and I were stuck with each other, at least for six more months. I started thinking I should muster up some sort of reconciliation. I thought about apologizing. Maybe she’d apologize for being such a bitch. I had a plan, was going to do it after my last class the Monday before finals. I swear I was going to.
But then I get back to my room, and Bibi’s in bed with Skippy. He’s straddling her stomach. His schlong’s way up in her belly, shoved up there real good. He’s riding her like a madman, and Bibi’s arching up so her belly keeps hitting his balls.
I slammed the door behind me and slept in the lounge.
Who did she think she was having sex with a human boy, and one from our floor? It’s not that I liked him. He was too pimply for me. But she’d been lying to me all semester, pretending she didn’t understand my crushes, and now this. She loses her virginity to Skippy. She loses her virginity before me. I couldn’t believe a Jupitarian had beaten me to it.
Still, I figured I’d be the bigger person. I figured we should talk. The next day, I get back from ballet, and she’s sitting at her desk reading chemistry, taking pages of notes, pretending like nothing happened. So I sit on my futon and sigh this huge sigh, hoping she’ll get the gist we need to talk. And when that doesn’t work, I say, “If you’re going to be one of those kinds of girls, we need a system.”
She says, “Skippy told me to put a bra on the door. I don’t have any. Is that what you mean?”
“Yeah, that’s what I mean,” I say. And then, “So what’s the big idea? I thought you were genderless. Were you lying about the self-germination?”
“I can’t get pregnant the human way. It’s got to be my own pollen. You’re not even the right species.”
“A girl who can’t get pregnant,” I say. “The boys are going to love that.”
She shrugs. She doesn’t even care that she just lost her cherry. It doesn’t even faze her.
“So did you orgasm all over good ole Skippy?” I ask. “Was he good? Can Jupitarians even get off?”
“You’re so stupid,” she says. “Would a species survive if they couldn’t orgasm?”
“Screw you,” I say. I grab my towel and shower caddy and slam the door behind me. Emily, our next-door neighbor, is just leaving for class.
“God,” I say, “that Bibi is such a whore. I wish she’d warn me before she fucks guys in the room.”
Emily says, “Really? Bibi? I didn’t know she could. We were wondering about that.”
“Yeah,” I say. “She’s a little bitch.”
“Didn’t she go to your house?” Emily says. “I thought you were friends.”
“Not anymore.”
I pound down the hall as hard as I can, though flip-flops don’t make much noise. I slam the bathroom door to let the whole floor know Bibi’s a skank. I let the hot water wash over my back. “Slut,” I say under my breath. And then a little louder, “At least I’m not a slut like you are.” I say it as though I’m talking to someone in the opposite shower stall. “You’re such a slut,” I say again and imagine Bibi across from me. I say it once more, almost shout it, “You’re the biggest slut in the galaxy, and I wish you’d go back to the moon!”
I’m not sure if it was Skippy who spread the word or Emily. It might even have been me, proclaiming loudly from the shower stall that day. Whoever it was, my bra ended up on the door an awful lot the next month. I left a note on her desk that said, “Stay the hell away from my underwear drawer.”
Bibi did a different guy nearly every day. I saw one of those little black books on her desk. She had all the boys on the hall penciled in. There were even some names I didn’t know. She really had turned into a whore. I wondered if they paid her or if she did it for free. I missed the old Bibi. The Bibi who forgot her shoes. The Bibi who studied all night. The Bibi who didn’t know jack shit about boys.
We didn’t talk anymore. We just came and went as though we didn’t know each other. I moved my futon into Emily’s room and slept there most of the time. I wondered what would become of Bibi. I figured her grades would plummet, and she’d get kicked out of school. But w
hen I got back from Christmas break, her marks were posted to the wall, nine A’s. She’d completed a whole year of college in four months.
I’m not sure how she kept it up, the sex and the studies. Her second semester she upped her course load to ten. They even let her into a graduate class. Like I said, if you’re not from America, they let you get away with that shit.
Then around February she starts looking greener. I wonder if she has that seasonal depression thing. Then one day, I get back to my room, and Bibi’s jumping all over her bed. She’s got the music cranked as high as it goes, some god-awful Broadway crap, and she’s singing, “I feel pretty. Oh so pretty.” And she’s wearing this outfit that’s half her clothes and half mine with my sparkly panties around her head.
“What the hell’s going on?” I say. “I thought I told you not to touch my stuff.”
She jumps off her bed and dances this little jig. She looks so goddamn ridiculous I have to laugh.
“Did you find some solution to Jupiter’s baby problem?” I ask. “Is your research going well?”
“No,” she says. “I’m pregnant.”
“You’re not,” I say. “I thought you couldn’t.”
“Well, it’s not like I had proof it was impossible,” she says. “I guess it is. I’m pregnant with a half-human baby.” At this, she bursts out laughing. Pollen puffs out her ears in yellow clouds.
“Who?” I say. “Whose baby is it?”
“A boy’s,” she says. “A human boy’s.” And then she’s surrounded by pollen again. She swirls it around with her hands. “Can you believe that?”
“Are you going to keep it?” I say. “If you give birth, it’ll kill you, right?”
“I’m giving birth to the first half-human, half-Jupitarian baby ever!” she screams. She rips the panties off her head and twirls them in the air.
“Can’t you get an abortion? Those are common here. They’ll get rid of it. You’ll be fine.”
“I don’t want an abortion,” she says. “I want to be eaten alive.”
I didn’t know what to say. She’d turned ten types of crazy. It must have been that euphoria she told me about. I began to wish I had a normal human roommate I could take to the abortion clinic so things would be better. I’d never had a friend with a life-threatening illness. Only grandfathers and uncles. And they died. There was nothing I could do. Bibi had lost it. Her condition was terminal, and she didn’t even care.
In the weeks that followed, Bibi stopped seeing the boys. I moved my futon back into our room, and we started talking again. I became Bibi’s bodyguard, shielding her from all the male scum on the floor. Boys would stop by and say, “I’m here for some alien sex.”
I’d say, “Fuck off, asshole.” And they’d go away.
By March, Bibi had given up her studies. No more stem cell research. Instead, she starts holing herself up in our room making sculptures out of dining hall silverware. She hangs them from the ceiling where the ants used to be and opens the windows to watch the dead flowers blow in the breeze.
We start having parties in our room every weekend. Everyone brings beer and fills up our fridge. The RA doesn’t give a damn because Bibi got her through chemistry first semester, and she hopes she’ll get her through physics next fall.
I call my mother and tell her we’re getting along great. I tell her Bibi is the best. My mother’s glad we’re back to being friends, says she knew we’d work it out. I don’t mention that Bibi is pregnant. My mother would be disappointed. She wouldn’t understand.
Finally, Bibi and I do everything together like roommates should. We order pizza at midnight, rate the guys on the hall, redecorate the room. We move the beds against one wall and scatter huge pillows on the floor. Bibi finds these red Christmas lights on sale at the hardware store and hangs them up. She turns them on and lies under her swaying spoons, pretends she’s watching hot liquid hydrogen swirl around Jupiter from the moon. She says, “Angela, come lie with me. We can watch Jupiter together. Better enjoy me while you can. Pretty soon, this baby will eat its way out.”
“Don’t talk like that,” I say.
“Like what?” She dangles her three-toed feet in the air, says, “It’s okay. It’s only death.”
By April she’s really showing. She’s got this great green hump of a belly, draws faces on it with finger paint and calls it Skippy Junior. Every day she plans something different. She says, “Let’s take Skippy Junior to the zoo. Let’s take Skippy Junior ice skating. Let’s take Skippy Junior for parachute lessons.”
I say, “Bibi, I’ve got classes.”
She says, “I’m going to be dead in a few months. You can study then.”
So we go ice skating and snorkeling and rent lots of porno and drink slushies. Bibi does this thing with her turkey baster, fills it up with slushie and lets it volcano into her mouth. Half goes in. Half gets all over, which makes the ants come back. But this is kind of great, just like before when we hated each other and Skippy was a stalker. Back when Bibi studied all the time and didn’t care about parties or drinking or boys.
The new Bibi is completely different. She dances all over the room, begs me to go with her to clubs, says, “You gotta teach me that booty bounce thing.” She puts on a sparkly shirt and lipstick, a short skirt and heels. She tapes a paper bow tie to her stomach and says, “Skippy Junior’s ready.”
So that’s what we do. We go to the only dance club in town, Freaky Willy’s. And I teach her to dance the American way. I show her how to grind like a skanky ho.
We run into Skippy at the club. He’s there with some guys. His acne looks a bit better. He buys us both drinks, Coronas all around. You’ve got to give him credit. At least he got us good beer. Then he wants to dance with Bibi. He seems genuine enough. Anyhow, there’s no way he can get sex with her funnel closed up. One of those really bouncy songs comes on with the flashing lights, and Bibi drags Skippy to the dance floor and rocks it out.
I sit at the bar and watch. She’s picked up the booty bounce, no problem. She looks kind of sexy gyrating her tiny hips, her shoulders bopping with the music. In this light, she doesn’t even look green. Skippy puts his hand on her back and tries to shake his pelvis too. But you can tell he’s not the dancing type.
Later, he walks us home, and Bibi invites him in. I go to Emily’s room until he leaves.
When he’s gone, I ask, “So does he want you back? Is it his baby?”
“It’s nobody’s baby,” she says. “On Jupiter, no one belongs to anyone else.”
That was the last time I saw Bibi. When I woke up, she was gone. There was a note on my desk that said, “Thanks for teaching me to dance. Thanks for sharing your family.” Most of her stuff was still there. I assume she went back to Jupiter, but who’s to be sure. I don’t like to think of other possibilities.
After that, there were lots of policemen and school officials who wanted to know where Bibi went. I told them I didn’t know. Word got out to the papers. Skippy came by our room and put a bouquet of weedy flowers by the door.
He said, “I really loved her. I don’t know why she had sex with all those other guys.”
“I know,” I said. “I’m sure it was your baby.”
I invited him in. We sat on Bibi’s bed real close, and it felt better, that warmth, being next to someone who understood. We stayed like that for hours, shoulder to shoulder, not even talking. When it got dark, we slid under the covers. I was wearing those sparkly panties, the ones Bibi tossed on the floor that first night, the ones that were Jupiter. Skippy slid his hand down the front, brushed his fingers against what I imagined to be Bibi’s moon. I didn’t even mind when he aimed his boner at my belly button. I guided it lower, and he found the right hole.
“What if she comes back?” he asked.
“She’s gone,” I said, and kissed him hard.
He moved his hips back and forth and buried his head in my neck. My eyes locked on the turkey baster on Bibi’s dresser, and I tried to imagine that she ha
d never been here. That she had never existed. That I had gotten here on my own.
ELIOT WROTE
Nancy Kress
“Not only is the universe stranger than we
imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.”
—J.B.S. Haldane
Eliot wrote: Picture your brain as a room. The major functions are like furniture. Each in its own place, and you can move from sofa to chair to ottoman, or even lie across more than one piece of furniture at the same time. Memory is like air in the room, dispersed everywhere. Musical ability is a specific accessory, like a vase on the mantle. Anger is a Doberman pinscher halfway out of the door from the kitchen. Algebra just fell down the heat duct. Love of your sibling is a water spill that evaporated three weeks ago.
Well, maybe not accurate, Eliot thought, and hit DELETE. Or maybe too accurate for his asshole English class. What kind of writing assignment was “Explain something important using an extended metaphor?”
He closed his school tablet and paced around the room. Cold, cheerless, bereft—or was that his own fault? Partly his own fault, he admitted; Eliot prided himself on self-honesty. He could turn up the heat, pick up the pizza boxes, open the curtains to the May sunshine. He did none of these things. Cold and cheerless matched bereft, and there was nothing to do about bereft. Well, one thing. He went to the fireplace (cold ashes, months old) and from the mantel plucked the ceramic pig and threw it as hard as he could onto the stone hearth. It shattered into pink shards.
Then he left the apartment and caught the bus to the hospital.
Eliot’s father had been entered into Ononeida Psychiatric Hospital ten days ago, for a religious conversion in which he saw the clear image of Zeus on a strawberry toaster pastry.
Ononeida, named for an Indian tribe that had once occupied Marthorn City, was accustomed to religious visions, and Carl Tremling was a mathematician, a group known for being eccentric. Ordinarily the hospital would not have admitted him at all. But Dr. Tremling had reacted to the toaster pastry with some violence, flinging furniture out of the apartment window and sobbing that there was dice being played with the universe after all, and that the center would not hold. A flung end-table, imitation Queen Anne, had hit the mailman, who was not seriously injured but was considerably perturbed. Carl Tremling was deemed a danger to others and possibly himself.
Lightspeed: Year One Page 71
